As Evan, Abby, Diesel, and Rev discuss habits and Diesel's smoking addiction, they realize how much their behaviors control them, setting the stage for a difficult confrontation. The final bell has already shrieked.
Most of Northwood is emptying—lockers banging, sneakers squeaking down the halls.
But in Room 214, the Crystic Mystic study group stays.
Posters of galaxies and color‑coded chakra charts cover the cinderblock walls. Desks are pulled into a rough circle under buzzing fluorescent lights.
Evan stands at the whiteboard.
On the teacher’s desk behind him, his notebook lies open. At the top of the page, in Lord Blue’s eerily perfect handwriting, three lines are underlined three times:
Soul school homework: choose one habit that controls you more than you control it.
He turns to the group.
Abby, Diesel, and Rev look up.
“Our assignment,” Evan says, “is to each pick one habit—one addiction—that runs us instead of us running it. Then figure out how to get free.”
The word addiction lands like a dropped weight.
Eyes suddenly find very interesting things on the floor.
Diesel slouches deeper into his chair, combat boots up on an empty desk. Hoodie half‑zipped, band tee visible underneath.
“I always just do whatever I want,” Diesel says. “I don’t have any bad habits.”
Inside, he can feel the familiar rectangle of a cigarette pack in his backpack like a hot rock.
Abby snorts before she can stop herself.
“You want me to print you a list?” she says.
The words are sharper than she means.
Diesel shoots her a look.
“Maybe you could work on your habit of stabbing people with words and then acting holy about it,” he says.
Abby winces.
“I’m sorry. Please forgive me,” she blurts.
Diesel’s lip curls.
“Your Savior already forgave you,” he says. “Why ask me?”
The jab lands.
Rev raises both hands like a referee.
“Okay,” Rev says. “Foul on the play. Let’s stick with the assignment, not each other’s throats.”
He flips open his notebook.
“We can do this as a team,” Rev goes on. “Call each other out when we relapse. I want to stop inhaling dessert. Or at least stop being owned by it.”
He tries to say it lightly, but he remembers nights of shame, staring at empty candy wrappers.
Abby takes a breath, re‑centering.
“I lose myself in fantasy daydreams,” she admits. “I live in imaginary futures. I want to be more focused on what’s actually happening.”
She doesn’t say: instead of studying, instead of hard conversations, instead of real choices.
“Both of those are serious,” Evan says. “I want to stop listening to the wrong voices in my head. The Tempters. The ones that sound like me but aren’t. I want to hear just my conscience.”
Tonight, those voices are already whispering: This won’t work. You’re overthinking. Just stay the same.
Diesel snorts.
“Candy is literally made to be eaten,” he says. “Stories are creativity. And the voices in my brain are my brain. I shut them off, I’m a vegetable.”
He hesitates.
“But,” he adds, “there is one addiction I kind of want to stop. Smoking.”
The room goes very still.
Evan and Rev both lean forward.
“We didn’t know you smoked,” they say together. “Since when?”
Abby wrinkles her nose.
“Your clothes always smell like smoke,” she says. “I thought it was just your dad.”
Diesel looks at his hands.
“A couple of years ago,” he says. “I started hanging out with the older guys on my street. They said real men smoke to boost their testosterone.”
He hears their laughter in his head. The way they blow smoke rings like crowns.
“Aren’t you scared of cancer?” Abby asks.
Diesel shrugs.
“They say there’s no real proof nicotine hurts you,” he says. “We use extra filters. Sometimes weed through a water bong. They’re older. They know more, right?”
Even he hears how weak that sounds.
He sighs.
“Now I want to quit,” Diesel says. “And I… can’t. My dad doesn’t know. He’s trying to quit himself. If he smells smoke on me, he’ll blame himself and maybe start again. I don’t want to wreck his progress. But I don’t know how to stop.”
Silence.
Rev breaks it.
“You picked hard mode,” Rev says. “Level boss stuff. You still hanging with those guys?”
“No,” Diesel says. “I told them, what a job, which is half true. But really? I know if I keep going there after school, I’m never quitting.”
“Then why haven’t you just… stopped?” Abby asks. “You could quit buying them.”
Diesel exhales.
“I’ve cut down,” he says. “But it’s not just a ‘buy less’ thing. It’s… layered. Mental. Emotional. Physical. And something… else.”
He stares past them, searching for words.
“Part of it’s friends, ads, my dad,” he says. “But there’s this other thing. It feels like this huge invisible worm wrapped around my chest, sucking my life out. At first, it acts like my best friend. It talks to me.”
Rev raises an eyebrow.
“Now you’re the one hearing voices,” Rev says.
Diesel nods.
“I’m serious,” he says. “At first, it makes me feel taller. Stronger. Calm. It tells me I’m a man. Helps me relax. Then I crash. It squeezes my chest until I freak out and smoke again. I thought I was imagining it. Then I met other ex‑smokers. Same story.”
Evan’s face tightens.
“I’ve read similar stuff,” Evan says. “Entities that latch onto addictions. They can’t eat themselves—so they trick humans into feeding them.”
Abby shivers.
“Like those horror movies with invisible vampires stuck to people,” she says. “Just draining them. You’re saying that’s real?”
In his inner sight, Evan now sees it—faint but clear: a coiled, gray‑black thing wrapped around Diesel’s ribs, pulsing whenever Diesel thinks about a cigarette.
Lord Blue’s homework doesn’t feel abstract anymore.
It feels like bomb disposal.
Years later, as Diesel craves a cigarette at a party while Evan and Rev help shield him, the true spiritual battle underlying his physical addiction comes to light. Flash‑forward.
Ten years.
Music shakes the floor of a high‑rise apartment. Stale beer, cheap cologne, and old smoke mix into one sticky haze.
Diesel, now twenty‑five, stands half by an open window at a party, trying to catch non‑poisonous air.
His fingers pat his pockets on autopilot.
No pack.
The itch spikes.
You know what fixes this, the old thought whispers.
“Rev,” Diesel says, weaving through dancing bodies. “Got any cigarettes?”
Rev, pressed against a wall nursing a soda, looks up.
His hoodie hangs looser than it used to. His eyes are clearer.
“Nope,” Rev says. A tiny smug light flickers. “I quit.”
Diesel stares.
“You’ve been two-packs a day since like junior year,” Diesel says. “You literally gave me my first smoke.”
Rev’s jaw tightens.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “That’s on my top‑three regret list.”
He straightens.
“I found help,” Rev says. “I quit. It sucked. Then it didn’t.”
Diesel laughs once, harshly.
“What happened to you?” he asks.
Before Rev can answer, the hiss in Diesel’s mind turns up.
You need one now. Find one.
He scans the room.
Evan stands near the kitchen, chatting with some guy about sound equipment.
Diesel beelines for him.
“I need a smoke,” Diesel says. “Got one?”
Evan smiles slightly.
“Nope,” he says. “Last ones I saw went into a trash can.”
He holds Diesel’s gaze.
“Walk with me,” Evan adds. “By the river.”
“After a cigarette,” Diesel says automatically. The idea of not having one first feels like claws under his skin.
Rev appears at his other side.
“We can hit a store,” Rev says casually.
He’s lying. Everyone knows it.
But Diesel lets them steer him out of the apartment anyway, down rattling stairs and out into the cold night.
With every step, the noise dies behind them.
And with every step, the craving loses a tiny bit of volume.
By the time they hit street level, the clawing need is still there—but it’s not the only thing he feels.
There’s something else. A… buffer. A warm, soft pressure from both sides.
Evan.
Rev.
“You are different,” Diesel says as they head toward the river. “Calm. Like your brain’s not on fire. What happened?”
“Told you,” Rev says. “I quit.”
“Why?” Diesel asks.
Before Rev can reply, the hiss in Diesel’s chest roars.
Don’t listen. You can’t quit. You need it. Find a lighter. Find a pack.
The voice isn’t subtle anymore.
It sounds less like him and more like something latching on.
Diesel stops.
His fists clench at his sides.
“No,” Diesel says out loud. “I don’t need a cigarette.”
The night air snaps around his words.
Evan senses the shift.
He draws in a slow breath and silently kicks on his own training—visualizing a pale‑blue shield flaring around all three of them like a dome.
In his inner vision, he sees it: the gray worm around Diesel’s chest, head by his ear, eyes red and mean.
If you don’t smoke, the Tempter hisses, voice like static, I’ll make you so miserable you’ll beg for it. Nicotine is part of who you are. Your friends like Smoking You. What will you do with your hands at parties?
Diesel actually sees a flicker of something red-eyed at the edge of a streetlamp glow.
His stomach flips.
“I get it now,” Diesel says quietly. “Why did you quit?”
Evan doesn’t answer.
He focuses, feeding the shield with breath and intent.
The worm thrashes.
You can’t quit, it snarls. You’ll be awkward around smokers. They’ll think you’re judging them. You’ll lose them. You’ll be alone.
Diesel hears it.
And for the first time, he also hears how desperate it sounds.
He tilts his head back, eyes on the stars he can barely see through the city light.
“Angels,” Diesel says, voice raw, “if you’re real—help. I want to be me without this.”
The words rip out of him.
For a second, everything goes… quiet.
Evan sees it: a surge of bright, blue‑white light slicing down like a blade between Diesel and the worm.
The worm’s grip loosens.
It lets out a last, angry hiss.
You didn’t get rid of me; it calls as it peels away, retreating into the dark. I’ll find some other way to feed.
“Maybe,” Diesel mutters. “But not like this.”
His hand drifts to his pocket.
His fingers find metal—his lighter.
He pulls it out.
His thumb runs over it one last time.
Then he chucks it into the river.
It arcs, catches the light—then vanishes beneath black water.
The itch eases.
Not gone.
But… different.
“I don’t know what you just did,” Diesel tells Evan, heartbeat slowing, “but I just quit smoking.”
Evan holds out his hand.
Diesel takes it.
“Thanks,” Evan says softly. “For letting me undo one big screw-up.”
He doesn’t have to say which one.
The night flows around them.
Three guys, one invisible battle, and an addiction that just lost its favorite feeding tube.
In the chilly park, when Evan and Abby confront a smoking man and learn how entities feed on addiction, they witness firsthand how these invisible shadows hook into human vulnerabilities. A few days later, the sky over downtown is a flat, pale gray.
Evan and Abby walk through the park, breathing fog in the cold.
On a bench ahead, a dude in his thirties sits with one ankle on his knee, cigarette glowing between his fingers.
Smoke curls into the air.
Abby wrinkles her nose.
“He’s smoking,” she says. “Doesn’t he know that will kill him?”
“He knows,” Evan says. “But his pet shadow keeps telling him he’s young, strong, and special. Cancer happens to ‘other people.’”
“His… pet shadow?” Abby says.
Evan tunes in.
In his inner sight, he sees it clearly: a thick, ugly worm‑thing coiled tight around the man’s chest, head resting at his right ear.
“He can’t see what I see,” Evan says. “Big worm wrapped around his heart. Every drag? He feeds it. It whispers; he thinks it’s his own thought.”
Abby’s skin crawls.
“That’s awful,” she says. “We should warn him.”
Before he can answer, she’s already walking toward the bench.
“Hi,” Abby says, smiling brightly and nervously. “Can I ask you something?”
The man eyes them—two teens in hoodies and backpacks interrupting his smoke break.
He takes another drag, letting it calm him.
“Depends on the question,” he says.
“You seem smart,” Abby says. “So… why do you smoke?”
Evan murmurs under his breath.
“Worm just tightened,” he says. “Head’s right by his ear now.”
The man flicks ash away.
“Not sure if I should thank you for ‘smart’ or punch you for calling me stupid,” he says. “But, fine. I like it. I like the feeling of pulling the smoke in. Nothing else hits the same.”
“Do you smoke because you like it,” Abby asks, “or because you’re addicted and can’t quit?”
“I like it,” he says. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t do it. I don’t need to quit, so why should I?”
“Because it’s dangerous,” Abby says.
He snorts.
“I could die crossing the street,” he says. “I’m not going to spend my life scared of everything.”
Abby tries again.
“Do you want to quit?” she asks.
He pauses.
Then squints.
“Why do you care?” he asks.
He shifts back on the bench, putting a few more inches between them.
Evan’s inner sight catches something else now: smaller shadow‑worms inching along the man’s aura toward Abby, like baby snakes testing a new host.
“Careful,” Evan murmurs. “They’re looking at you like ‘fresh meat.’”
Abby hears only her own stubborn compassion.
“Because I want to help,” she says.
The man smiles—tight, mocking.
“Then understand,” he says. “The best way to get smoking is to smoke. Here.”
He holds out his pack.
“Just one. Light drag. Don’t hold it in. You’ll get the buzz.”
In Evan’s vision, the man’s worm freaks.
A baby shadow launches onto Abby’s shoulder, slithering toward her ear.
She feels a weird, sudden urge to prove she’s not a scared little church mouse. To take it. To not be “lame.”
Her mouth opens.
“No, thanks,” she means to say.
But she feels her tongue stall.
Inside, Evan prays fast.
Archangel Michael, sword, now. Cut that thing off her.
He pictures a blue‑white blade slicing the baby worm away from Abby’s aura.
The urge breaks.
Her head clears.
“No thanks,” Abby says firmly. “Cigarettes cause cancer.”
The man laughs.
“So do a ton of other things,” he says. “We all die someday. God made nicotine. Why not enjoy it? One puff won’t kill you. You won’t know what I’m talking about until you try. You can stare at a Twinkie all day. You haven’t tasted it till you bite.”
Evan takes Abby’s hand.
“Come on,” he says softly, tugging her back. “Listen to how that ‘voice’ argues. It twists everything to make you look weak for saying no. He’s not open. His worm is running his mouth. Don’t feed it by arguing.”
Abby lets herself be led away.
“But I want to help him,” she says, looking back. “I don’t get why the Creator even allows those things. They’re gross and evil. Why can’t we just… kill it?”
“He likes it,” Evan says. “He invited it in. It’s living inside his shield because he permitted it.”
Behind them, the man calls after them, voice rising.
“Ever jumped out of a plane? Ridden a bike off a ramp?” he yells. “You don’t know anything till you try it! I don’t need help from scared kids. You know nothing, little girl!”
Abby flinches.
“Wow,” she says. “That flipped fast. Why so mad?”
“His pet feels attacked,” Evan says. “So it pumps anger into his brain. He can’t tell his thoughts apart from its whispers.”
“That’s… disgusting,” Abby says. “How does he ever get rid of it?”
Evan looks back.
In his inner sight, a tall figure of blue‑white light now stands near the bench—Archangel Michael. The angel’s sword slices at the worm. With Evan’s quiet prayer, the shadow detaches and hovers a few feet away, writhing.
“Look, you did knock it off!” Abby says, eyes wide. “Let’s go tell him!”
Evan shakes his head.
“It’s still his,” he says. “As long as he wants it, it’ll orbit like a hungry satellite and snap back in when feeding time comes. It’s made of his misused light. It’s technically indestructible unless he chooses to stop fueling it.”
Abby stares at her own hands.
“So… the only reason evil things like that exist,” she says slowly, “is because we… make them. And keep feeding them.”
“Yeah,” Evan says. “Our free will. Our energy. The Creator won’t delete what we choose to create—not until we ask, and mean it.”
A chill breeze cuts through the park.
The man on the bench lights another cigarette.
The worm slides back in.
Abby shivers.
What am I feeding? she thinks. Every time I replay an old grudge. Every time I daydream about winning instead of loving.
The wind shifts.
The last whiff of cigarette smoke blows away.
Underneath it, if you listen hard, there’s something else—a thin, steady current of light, always there, always humming, waiting for someone to tune in.
Change is possible.
Feeding patterns—or starving them—is still a choice.
And that’s where Crystic Mystic's superpowers really start.
In Room 214 of Northwood School, the Crystic Mystic study group (Evan, Abby, Diesel, and Rev) tackle their Lord Blue homework assignment: identifying and overcoming a habit or addiction that controls them. While Rev aims to stop compulsive eating and Abby wants to conquer fantasy daydreams, Diesel finally confesses to a secret, multi-year cigarette smoking addiction. Diesel describes the addiction not just as a physical or social habit, but as an invisible, parasite-like shadow entity wrapped around his chest that whispers to him and demands to be fed.
A decade later, a 25-year-old Diesel struggles with cravings at a high-rise party. With the energetic and emotional support of Evan and Rev, who help shield him, Diesel confronts the parasitic entity, prays for angelic help, and symbolically throws his lighter into the river to break free. Later, Evan and Abby encounter a smoking man in the park, where Evan uses his inner sight to witness how invisible shadow-worms feed on human vulnerability, manipulate thoughts, and immediately reattach themselves unless the host genuinely chooses to stop feeding them.
Addiction as an Entity: Addictions are not merely physical or psychological habits; they are often fueled and amplified by parasitic astral entities that latch onto human energy fields and whisper false thoughts to ensure continuous feeding.
The Power of Community Shielding: Overcoming deep-seated addictions is greatly aided by the collective spiritual shielding, presence, and moral support of friends who refuse to enable destructive patterns.
Free Will and Entity Attachment: Astral parasites can only attach themselves and feed on human energy because the individual permitted them entry; they cannot be permanently removed without the person's genuine desire to starve the addiction.
The Illusion of Control: The carnal ego often mistakes an entity's voice and cravings for its own authentic desires, believing it is in control while actually being entirely manipulated.
Evan: A perceptive student who identifies invisible addiction entities using his inner sight, helps shield Diesel during his cravings, and understands the mechanics of astral vampires.
Diesel: A struggling smoker who confesses his addiction to the study group, battles a parasitic chest-worm for years, and eventually breaks free by throwing away his lighter.
Rev: A member of the study group who successfully quits smoking, supports Diesel during his cravings, and reflects on past mistakes.
Abby: A student who attempts to warn a stranger in the park about the dangers of smoking, nearly getting baited by an attached entity before Evan pulls her away.